My weekend and my random brain

That was a good weekend.

This is where we were (see above). Keld in the Yorkshire Dales.

This is why Mr Tumperkin likes the Yorkshire Dales:

Real ale. Preferably accompanied by a packet of pork scratchings *retches*.

This why Mouse (le petit fils) likes the Yorkshire Dales:

Real ale and sheep collided on Saturday evening when we visited this pub - Britain's highest pub, the Tan Hill Inn.

When we arrived, there was a sheep trying to get in the pub. I shooed it off but as I opened the door to let the children in. It tried to rush past me, baaing looudly. Several times! Mouse wailed.

Much hilarity in the pub over this. And then all weekend, Mouse kept saying to us, "Sheep it try a come inna pub it was **screws up face to aggressive expression** BAAAAAAA! Like that mummy."

We were camping. First time I've camped in a few years. First night was hell. NO sleep. Hours of lying awake tossing and turning. Second night better: exhaustion-induced sleep. Other than that, it was tremendous fun. Last night we had a camp fire to keep off the midges (HA!). Once the kids had finally gone to bed, Mr T and I were crouched over the fire, chatting. I had a towel over my head and he had fashioned a rudimentary insect mask using a child's fishing net. When it got too ridiculous to bear, we retired to the car where he murdered a few hundred midges in cold blood and I tried to read Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. (Soooo enjoying it).

Isn't this cover fab? It's even nicer close up. Brings to mind those 40s babe posters. Is it the same as the US one?

Anyhoo, back to camping. Some of you may think that sitting around a camp fire being eaten (and not, as Mr T pointed out, in a good way) not to mention sleeping badly doesn't sound so great - but really, it was a fab weekend! I had those fleeting moments of pure happiness you get sometimes from just living in the moment.

But of course, even when I'm living in the moment, the old brain box has a tendancy to drift. And my random brain has been pondering on a great many odd things this weekend.

I took a notion a couple of weeks ago, to try some Harlequin manga and some yaoi. So, on a whim, I bought Idol Dreams, an adaptation of an old Charlotte Lamb (you know how I loves me my Lambs) and Caged Slave (title bears no relation to story BTW - it's in fact a sweetish M/M romance).

I'm not going to bore you all with my comic book credentials. I don't really have any but I read a lot of comics from about 7-17 and I've never looked down on comic book art. My brother is really into comic books and is a good artist himself. He's never pursued it but he showed me a sort of autobiographical strip he did - it was amazing.

Anyway. I read these before my camping weekend and then sort of brooded on them during my spare moments.

They were both pretty slight but enjoyable and I was very aware that the art was at the forefront of my enjoyment. Idol Dreams was a proper comic book format whereas Caged Slave was an illustrated prose novel.

Although I suspect Idol Dreams was aimed squarely at a Western audience, both books seemed to me to have a Japanese soul. In both books, the 'heroine' is extremely shy with a tendancy to passive, self-effacing behavior that is nevertheless firmly rooted in pride.

I was surprised by how into the artwork I was. In Idol Dreams, the first picture of the hero was arresting. I kind of stared at it for a while and have since gone back to stare at it a few more times. Which kind of makes me feel about fifteen. He has an expression which I suspect is pretty characteristic of the genre. Haunted and poignant.

Ohmigod. I am so fifteen.

Caged Slave was even more interesting to me. I know I described it as a sweet M/M romance above. I suppose that sort of ignores the erotic content somewhat *coughs*. But really, compared to say, James Lear, it was very tame stuff.

If the 'heroine-hero', Tsukasa, was a woman, he would be slated by readers for his pathetic behaviour. If Tsukasa said "No! Please! We mustn't!" (and he did, frequently) he most assuredly meant "Oh yes, big boy! Do it to me, now." As I read this, I kept thinking, why am I reading this? To say it was slight is to massively overrate its heft. There was no conflict save for the weirdness going on in Tuskasa's own head. The constant reassurance and ready declarations of love that the hero Takeshima offered to the lame Tsukasa made my conflict-craving soul weep. But the pictures were weirdly mesmerising and I read this book quickly, unable to put it down.

I think I want to explore this further.

So if anyone has any Yaoi recommendations, I would be most interested to hear them.

Finally, I also spent some time thinking about the various pending posts outlined in my last post, and hopefully those will follow shortly.